Rising Anti-Semitism in Europe

May 14, 2013 - New York – The AJC weekly radio messages are broadcast on the CBS radio network, before The Osgood File. All AJC radio commentaries since 2001 are available at www.ajc.org/radiocommentary.

This
month, I was invited to speak at Mauthausen, the wartime Nazi concentration
camp in Austria. Ninety thousand people perished there.

In
all, there were six speakers, including the Austrian, Hungarian, and Polish
presidents.

Movingly,
among the 1000 invited guests were elderly survivors who came from America,
France, Israel, and other countries to bear witness.

After
reflecting on the past, I made three points about the present.

First,
“Today, anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe. Surveys show it. Statistics
prove it. And it is shameful that there are at least three openly anti-Semitic
political parties sitting in European parliaments.”

Second,
“The Holocaust is a sobering reminder of the centrality of Israel to the Jewish
people and to Jewish security.”

And
third, “The words ‘Never again’ must not be just for repetition at
commemorative events. They must be practiced on a daily basis.”